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Lojban content words: brivla |
``Pretty Little Girls' School'': The Structure Of Lojban selbri
The Lojban Reference Grammar |
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Three-part tanru grouping with ``bo'' |
Beyond the single brivla, a selbri may consist of two brivla placed together. When a selbri is built in this way from more than one brivla, it is called a tanru, a word with no single English equivalent. The nearest analogue to tanru in English are combinations of two nouns such as ``lemon tree''. There is no way to tell just by looking at the phrase ``lemon tree'' exactly what it refers to, even if you know the meanings of ``lemon'' and ``tree'' by themselves. As English-speakers, we must simply know that it refers to ``a tree which bears lemons as fruits''. A person who didn't know English very well might think of it as analogous to ``brown tree'' and wonder, ``What kind of tree is lemon-colored?''
In Lojban, tanru are also used for the same purposes as English adjective- noun combinations like ``big boy'' and adverb-verb combinations like ``quickly run''. This is a consequence of Lojban not having any such categories as ``noun'', ``verb'', ``adjective'', or ``adverb''. English words belonging to any of these categories are translated by simple brivla in Lojban. Here are some examples of tanru:
2.1) tu pelnimre tricu
that-yonder is-a-(lemon tree).
That is a lemon tree.
2.2) la djan. barda nanla
John is-a-big boy.
John is a big boy.
2.3) mi sutra bajra
I quick run.
I quickly run/I run quickly.
Note that ``pelnimre'' is a lujvo for ``lemon''; it is derived from the gismu ``pelxu'', yellow, and ``nimre'', citrus. Note also that ``sutra'' can mean ``fast/quick'' or ``quickly'' depending on its use:
2.4) mi sutra
I am-fast/quick.
shows ``sutra'' used to translate an adjective, whereas in Example 2.3 it is translating an adverb.
(Another correct translation of Example
2.3, however, would be ``I am a quick runner''.)
There are special Lojban terms for the two components of a tanru, derived from the place structure of the word ``tanru''. The first component is called the ``seltau'', and the second component is called the ``tertau''.
The most important rule for use in interpreting tanru is that the tertau carries the primary meaning. A ``pelnimre tricu'' is primarily a tree, and only secondarily is it connected with lemons in some way. For this reason, an alternative translation of Example 2.1 would be:
2.5) That is a lemon type of tree.
This ``type of'' relationship between the components of a tanru is fundamental to the tanru concept.
We may also say that the seltau modifies the meaning of the tertau:
2.6) That is a tree which is lemon-ish
(in the way appropriate to trees)
would be another possible translation of Example 2.1. In the same way, a more explicit
translation of Example 2.2 might be:
2.7) John is a boy who is big in the way that boys are big.
This ``way that boys are big'' would be quite different from the way in which elephants are big; big-for-a-boy is small-for-an-elephant.
All tanru are ambiguous semantically. Possible translations of:
2.8) ta klama jubme
That is-a-goer type-of-table.
include:
No general theory covering the meaning of all possible tanru exists; probably no such theory can exist. However, some regularities obviously do exist:
2.9) do barda prenu
You are-a-large person.
2.10) do cmalu prenu
You are-a-small person.
are parallel tanru, in the sense that the relationship between
``barda'' and ``prenu'' is the same as that between ``cmalu''
and ``prenu''. Section 14 and Section 15 contain a partial listing of some
types of tanru, with examples.
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Previous
Lojban content words: brivla |
``Pretty Little Girls' School'': The Structure Of Lojban selbri
The Lojban Reference Grammar |
Next
Three-part tanru grouping with ``bo'' |